Tag Archives: 1916 Rising

Fake Histories #70  Did the 1916 Rising result in the introduction of GMT to Ireland?

Posted on by

iu.jpeg

 

Right about now, one hundred and four years ago, dozens of people in the city of Dublin were concerned for their immediate future.  This was because they had been rounded up after the surrender of the Volunteers in the Easter Rising and were facing courts martial which could, and in a number of cases, actually did, lead to their executions.

A couple of years after the Rising, an irate Countess Markievicz, in a highly fractious letter, seemed to suggest that one of the consequences of the Rising was that a vindictive British government had taken away Ireland’s unique time zone and folded us in with Greenwich Mean Time as a punishment for being bolshy rebels.

Let’s do some unpacking here. It is true that in 1916 the British government introduced the Time (Ireland) Act. This abolished something called Dublin Mean Time, which had been in force since an earlier piece of legislation, the Statutes (Definition of Time) Act of 1880.  What the 1916 legislation meant was that a practice, whereby time in Dublin was twenty-five minutes behind GMT, was finally abolished. DMT was the local time at Dunsink Observatory. To be completely accurate Dublin was twenty-five minutes and twenty-one seconds behind London. But, with your permission, I will ignore the twenty-one seconds. Or, if you like, I can pause for exactly that amount of time just to keep things straight. Maybe not.

So, when British clocks went back by an hour for the winter of 1916, so that Tommies weren’t fighting the Battle of the Somme in the dark, Ireland only got an extra thirty-five minutes in the scratcher. Alignment with GMT became permanent and remains so to this day.

iu-1.jpeg

The prominence of local time—i.e. the actual time at a specific location, rather than a centralised version of same—came about in the United Kingdom in 1858. At that time we were members of the august configuration of stroppy nations. On 25 November of that year the defendant in Curtis v March, due to be heard by a judge in Dorchester failed to show up for his hearing and lost his case. He appealed on the basis that he’d been told to be in court at 10.00 am and had turned up on time, according to the local time on the town clock, but not in line with GMT. He won his appeal and that ruling defined ‘time’ in the UK as local, until the 1880 legislation which standardised it in Britain and left us twenty-five minutes adrift.

However, there’s quite a bit of post hoc, ergo propter hoc about the Countess’s pronouncement. In other words ‘since event Y followed event X event Y must have been caused by event X’. Which is a bit like saying ‘I bought an ice cream and two minutes later there was an earthquake. Therefore, my purchase of a tub of Cherry Garcia  caused that seismic event.’  Was it really the ‘stab on the back’ of the Easter Rising that prompted an apoplectic and vengeful British government to steal our lovely time zone?

Well, for a start the 1916 Rising was done and dusted by the  beginning of May. The abolition of Dublin Mean Time, which added almost half an hour to the seven hundred and fifty years of British colonial oppression, did not take place until 1 October. While revenge is a dish best served cold, it’s more likely to be consumed when it hasn’t completely gone off.

Having said that, there was some serious opposition to the alignment of Dublin and London in the same time zone. It was opposed in the House of Commons by some Irish nationalist MPs. A letter writer to the Irish Independent in August 1916 observed that, ‘the question is whether we should give up this mark of our national identity to suit the convenience of shipping companies and a few travellers.’

Post Brexit, there is the enormous potential for confusion on the island of Ireland if the UK—along with rejecting the European Court of Justice and pulling out of the Eurovision Song Contest because they’re never going to win it again anyway—should also assert their new-found independence by abandoning summer and winter time. So, it is worth remembering that we have a powerful weapon in our armoury to offer in retaliation. We can threaten them with the restoration of Dublin Mean Time. Then we can make things even more confusing by adding back the twenty-one seconds as well.

But as to whether the loss of DMT one hundred and four years ago was a punishment for the 1916 Rising?   That’s FHT, fake history time.

FAKE HISTORIES #16   Eamon de Valera escaped execution in 1916 because he was an American citizen?

Posted on by

iu.jpeg

Given that one of the highest ranking survivors of the 1916 Rising went on to dominate Irish politics for almost three decades, surely one of the great imponderables of Irish history must be, ‘What if Patrick Pearse had been granted his wish, and he alone was executed after the surrender of the Volunteers?’ How would the avowed Marxist, James  Connolly have fared in the Ireland of the 1920s, assuming he recovered from his wounds? What roles would Sean MacDermott and Thomas Clarke have played in the Anglo-Irish war? We would certainly have got some excellent poetry from Joseph Plunkett and Thomas McDonagh.

But only one of the pivotal military leaders managed to survive, Eamon de Valera, and if his subsequent political career is anything to go by, the 1920s and 30s would have been even more interesting with the input of other surviving signatories.

So much for ‘What if?’ you might say, and you’d probably be right. Except that there is a huge counterfactual element—as historians put it—to de Valera’s own narrative. As in, ‘what if’ he hadn’t been born in New York and the British military authorities were reluctant to execute him for fear of antagonising the US administration.

So, let’s clear up a few things about de Valera and his involvement in 1916. First, there’s the assumption that he was the highest ranking survivor. He wasn’t. He was actually outranked by an extraordinary 20-year-old Volunteer named Seán McLaughlin who was promoted to commandant-general around the time of the evacuation of the GPO.

Dev was in command of the Third Battalion of the Volunteers based in Boland’s Mills. A small unit, formally under his command, was responsible for causing the most serious damage to the British Army during the rebellion, when they inflicted over two hundred casualties, mainly on the Sherwood Foresters, at Mount Street Bridge. De Valera, however, played no active part in that famous engagement.

iu-1.jpeg

After the surrender, De Valera and his unit were taken to the RDS where they were held prisoner. This was probably a crucial element in his survival. Had he, like most of the other leaders of the Rising, been brought to Richmond Barracks and quickly court-martialled, history could have been very different. But, he was not a signatory to the Proclamation and was only belatedly court-martialled, so he had to wait his turn to be executed or to have his death sentence commuted by the military governor, General Sir John Maxwell.

The first dozen firing squad victims fell quickly, within four days of each other. Then there was a pause, during which a hugely adverse reaction set in, not just in Dublin but in London. With the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, on his way to Dublin—with the clear intention of ending the executions—the priority for the military authorities was to dispose of the final two signatories of the Proclamation, Sean MacDermott and James Connolly before a wavering Asquith could step in and save them.

A Dublin barrister, William Wylie, who had been involved on the legal side in the Courts-Martial, was actually approached by General Maxwell and asked about de Valera. Maxwell wanted to know was he someone who might give trouble in the future. Wylie, by now thoroughly disillusioned with the entire process, might well have saved de Valera’s life when he responded in the negative. Had he not done so there might well have been a third victim of the firing squad on 12 May 1916. De Valera, of course, went on to prove Wylie spectacularly wrong. He managed to cause the British authorities quite a bit of bother, right up to and beyond, the Economic War of the 1930s, and the fateful decision to establish Ireland’s neutrality during World War Two.

So, de Valera’s survival was more to do with timing than with his American citizenship. If the British had been worried about that sort of thing they would not have executed Thomas Clarke either. He had become an American citizen in 1883.

Did de Valera escape execution in 1916 because he was born in New York? No, he didn’t. That’s fake history.

On This Day – 11 August 1796 Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin prepares to receive its first prisoners


Posted on by

images.jpegUnknown.jpeg

 

It’s such a huge tourist attraction today that it’s quite shocking to realise there were proposals as recently as the 1950s to demolish much of it. But Kilmainham Gaol survived intact to play a huge part in the current decade of centenaries.

It opened in 1796 and even then, it was a grim place, housing men, women, and children as young as twelve. Some were held there prior to transportation to Australia, others were lodged in the prison before their executions, some served many years there in dreadful conditions, often sharing a cell with up to four others.

Almost every self-respecting nationalist, including some far removed from revolutionary politics, spent a spell at their Majesties’ pleasure in Kilmainham.  A number did so prior to being hanged or shot. The list of guests constitutes a distinguished club, Henry Joy McCracken, Oliver Bond, Napper Tandy, Robert Emmet, Michael Dwyer, William Smith O’Brien, Thomas Francis Meagher, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, Charles Stewart Parnell, and Michael Davitt.

Attached to the Gaol was a magistrates’ court where cases would be despatched, or, if a serious crime was involved, the preliminary process leading to indictment would take place. It was here that the alleged killers of the Chief Secretary, Frederick Cavendish and his Under Secretary, Thomas Henry Burke, in Phoenix Park in 1882—the so-called Invincibles—appeared for remand hearings before being committed to Green Street court for trial. And it was here that they first realised the game was up, when one of their number, James Carey, presented himself as a prosecution witness. He had opted to turn state’s evidence to save his own skin. His first appearance at Kilmainham Magistrates’ Court was greeted with roars of rage from the dock. A reporter observed that one of the accused, Joe Brady:

 

Glared at him and stretched forward towards him [had he] been able to reach him, I believe he would have been torn to pieces, for Brady was a powerful young fellow, and for the moment he was for all the world like a tiger on the spring.

 

The prisoners were returned to their cells and a few weeks later Carey’s evidence sent five of them to the hangman, a seasoned veteran named William Marwood. His customary advice to his victims before they met their maker was, ‘Now then, hold your head back and you’ll die easy’. They were all executed in the Kilmainham Prison Yard, and their bodies were interred under the scaffold erected to hang them.

Three decades later it was the turn of the leaders of the 1916 Rising. Fourteen were executed there over a nine-day period in May. The first to die, on 3 May, were Patrick Pearse, Thomas Clarke and Thomas MacDonagh. They faced firing squads of twelve British soldiers, mostly drawn from the Sherwood Foresters, who had been badly cut up on Mount Street Bridge the previous week. There was little regard to sensitivities on either side. No Catholic priest was allowed to be present to minister to the prisoners, and the same firing squad—consisting mainly of young recruits—was expected to execute all three men. A number of female prisoners, including Countess Markievicz, were rudely awoken by the volleys from the stone-breakers’ yard.

After the establishment of the Irish Free State the prison continued to be used during the Civil War. Around six-hundred Republican prisoners were incarcerated there, many of them women. One of the last to be released was Eamon de Valera.

The prison was closed by the Free State government in 1929, and might well have been demolished in the 1930s, except it was deemed too expensive to do so. The work of organisations, like the Kilmainham Gaol Restoration Society, ensured that it was eventually taken over by the Office of Public Works, and became one of the most visited historical sites in Dublin.

It has also been a useful location for a number of films. These include the adaptation of Brendan Behan’s prison drama, The Quare Fellow, as well as the Michael Caine film The Italian Job, and Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins. Collins himself was fortunate, he never actually served time there.

Kilmainham Gaol was finally completed and prepared to accept its first prisoners two hundred and twenty-one years ago, on this day.

 

5284871_orig.jpg

 

 

On This Day – 5 May 1916 William Evelyn Wylie and the court-martial of William Corrigan

Posted on by

 

william-evelyn-wylie.jpg

There were many unsung heroes of the 1916 Rising. The courageous Nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell, for example, who risked her life to carry Pearse’s flag of truce along Moore Street, and then took his surrender note, under heavy fire, to the remaining Volunteer garrisons. Or Sean McLoughlin, the ‘boy commandant’, promoted to that rank by James Connolly, who was twenty years of age when he played a pivotal role in the evacuation of the GPO.

William Evelyn Wylie may be ‘unsung’, ‘deeply flawed’ or just an anti-hero, depending on your point of view. He was a successful barrister who, when the Rising began, helped to seal off Trinity College, and deny that strategic position to the rebels. As it turned out the Volunteers didn’t really have much interest, whether they should have or not.

After Pearse’s surrender Wylie was tapped to participate in the court martial process as lead attorney. He prosecuted ‘Prisoner No. 1’, Pearse himself, and was hugely impressed with the Volunteer commander’s conduct at his brief trial. At the court martial of one of the most tragic figures of the rebellion, Thomas McDonagh, Wylie pulled up the presiding Judge, whose name was—I kid you not—General Charles Blackader.  Blackader sought to use the 1916 Proclamation as conclusive evidence against the prisoner. Wylie, who actually had a copy of the document in his possession, pointed out that it was inadmissible. Although McDonagh’s name was appended to the printed version, the court would require the presentation of the original signed copy in order to convict him.

As the courts martial proceeded Wylie, a unionist and a strong opponent of the principles underlying the rebellion, became increasingly concerned at the overriding of due process. He wrote a memoir of that week, which was left to his daughter after his death. In this he described how he took matters into his own hands. Although no defence attorney had been appointed in any of the one hundred and sixty abbreviated trials—an illegal procedure  in itself—Wylie took it upon himself to act as both prosecution and defence. While the three presiding military judges were considering their verdict in a case, Wylie would step outside to see who was coming next. He would then advise the accused of their rights, and inquire whether or not they wanted any witnesses to be present. Pearse, McDonagh and Thomas Clarke had not been made aware that such a facility was available.

It was while engaged in this Janus-like activity, on the fourth day of the courts martial, that Wylie realised, to his intense surprise, the next prisoner was a Dublin solicitor, William Corrigan, who had briefed him on many occasions in the recent past.  Corrigan had been taken prisoner at the South Dublin Union. When the court-martial began, with Blackader presiding, Wylie took the unusual step of arguing the case for and against the prisoner. When Blackader asked why Wylie had adopted this unorthodox  approach, the barrister revealed the nature of Corrigan’s profession. He then added that he had an uncashed cheque from the accused Volunteer in his pocket which might be void were he to be executed.

Corrigan was one of more than ninety prisoners to be sentenced to death, but in his case the court martial recommended clemency, and Wylie’s brief fee was thus secured.

Later, according to his own account, Wylie was consulted by the commander of Crown Forces in Ireland, General Sir John Maxwell, about the need to carry out the death sentence passed down on one Eamon de Valera, Third Battalion commandant. Wylie told Maxwell that he didn’t see any need to execute de Valera, as he was unlikely to cause trouble in the future. ‘I don’t think he’s very important’ said the clearly misinformed barrister.

Wylie, a keen cyclist, who is mentioned in this context in James Joyce’s Ulysees, went on to defend Sinn Fein prisoners during the War of Independence, despite his strong unionist sympathies. He was appointed to the High Court by the first Free State government, and served there until 1936.

William Evelyn Wylie prosecuted and defended Lieutenant William Corrigan of the Irish Volunteers, before a court martial in Richmond barracks, one hundred and one years ago, on this day.

Richmond_Barracks,_Dublin.jpg

 

On This Day – 14 October 1882 – Birth of Eamon de Valera

Posted on by

image.jpg

 

One of the most successful Irish movies of the year has been the adaptation of Colm Toibín’s novel Brooklyn. But that borough of the city of New York has a much more compelling Irish association. It was the chosen destination of an Irish immigrant Catherine Coll, from Co. Limerick, and it was from there that she met a young Spanish sculptor, got married and had a son in 1882. That son, their only child, went on to become the dominant Irish political personality of the 20th century, Eamon de Valera.

 

Not that the young de Valera, named Edward by his parents, knew much about his mother Catherine and his father Vivion. The latter was dead by the time he was three and his mother was forced by economic circumstances to have her son sent to Ireland in 1885 to be brought up by relatives in Bruree, Co. Limerick. There he was known as Eddie Coll. He later became a scholarship boy in Blackrock College where he was to become a teacher. In the 1911 census he was still Edward de Valera but his involvement in the Gaelic League sparked an increased interest in Irish. Until the formation of the Irish Volunteers in 1913 his politics were those of Home Rule, but the transformation of his philosophy was ultimately to lead to his command of the 3rd Battalion of the Volunteers in the Easter Rising of 1916.

 

Despite the execution of men far more junior than he de Valera survived the violent aftermath of the Rising. There is a myth that his death sentence was commuted because of his American citizenship. In fact it was more to do with timing and happenstance. In the wake of the controversial execution of James Connolly when General Sir John Maxwell, British military governor in Ireland, asked the young Irish prosecutor William Wylie whether de Valera should be shot on the basis that he might cause trouble in the future, Wylie made the memorable but hardly clairvoyant observation ‘I wouldn’t think so, sir, I don’t think he is important enough. From all I can hear he is not one of the leaders.’

 

After 1916 his star was in the ascendant. He won the East Clare by-election in 1917, led Sinn Fein to a sweeping victory in the 1918 General Election and escaped from Lincoln Jail in 1919. But his personality often let him down. In Lincoln Prison he made few friends among his fellow Republican inmates. Famously, in the exercise yard, he played handball alone. When he went to the USA after his escape, to raise funds and awareness, he succeeded in falling out with the political leaders of Irish America, John Devoy and Daniel Cohalan.

 

Never too far from controversy his decision in late 1921 not to accompany the Irish delegation to the London peace talks has been condemned, justifiably or otherwise, as a convenient cop out designed to ensure he remained untarnished by the inevitable fudge of the Treaty. His subsequent rejection of the agreement signed by Collins and Griffith, and the counter proposals of his ‘Document Number 2’, have been criticized as Jesuitical and self-serving.

 

He was largely sidelined during the Civil War – notwithstanding the contrary evidence advanced by the plot of Neil Jordan’s film Michael Collins – and seemed to depart from the principles he had enunciated in January 1922 when, in 1926, he and his followers took their seats in the Dail. This was essentially the governing parliament of a state that fell far short of the Republic for which he had argued in the divisive debate over the Treaty.

 

1932 saw the perennial poacher turn long-term gamekeeper when Fianna Fail won the General Election that year. Bar two brief periods of multi-party coalition he led the country for the next twenty-seven years, wrote the constitution that still, more or less, governs us today, and can be accused of presiding over an economy only rescued from stagnation by his successor Sean Lemass.

 

But he also, arguably, had the nous and the courage to lead Ireland through an economic war with our nearest neighbor in the 1930s, and to keep the country neutral during World War Two, as well as a number of other significant achievements.

 

Like or loathe him you cannot ignore Eamon de Valera – a much more impressive name for a political leader, it has to be said, than Eddie Coll.

 

Eamon de Valera, was born in New York one hundred and thirty four years ago, on this day.

 

DeValera_800.jpg